Antonín Svoboda

Antonin Svoboda (1907-1980) was a Czech computer scientist, mathematician, electrical engineer, and researcher. He is credited with originating the design of fault-tolerant computer systems, and with the creation of SAPO, the first Czechoslovak computer design.

1941-46 lived in USA. Participated in experiments in the Radiation Laboratory at MIT in Boston, and worked to develop a new auto-aiming targeting scope for warship anti-aircraft cannons. This was eventually developed fully as the Mark 56, which was mounted in the final stages of the war and was very effective in reducing the amount of damage by kamikaze airplane attacks, for which he was given a Naval Ordnance Development Award. Conducted initial design work with other scientists such as John von Neumann, Vanivar Bush, and Claude Shannon on emerging computing elements, including ciphering.

After the war, he spent some time helping to write computer documentation for the initial efforts in the US before returning to Prague. While initially he had wanted to stay in the USA to participate in the development of computers, early frustrations and military controls of the project made him decide he would be better off trying to build up a Czechoslovakian computer.

He returned to Prague in 1946, and became the department head at Prague's CTU of the Department of Mathematics. He attempted to get tenure but initially was rebuffed, and thus in 1950 he accepted an offer from Eduard Čech, the director of the Central Institute of Mathematical Studies, to come there and set up a new institute of what was called at the time "mathematical machinery".

In 1950, he launched the Academy of Science's Institute of Mathematical Machinery, and constructed the computer known as SAPO[2], the world's first fault-tolerant computer design. Based on unorthodox and untried elements and designs such as electromagnetic relays and drums, its architecture was quite advanced compared to other contemporary efforts such as ENIAC.

Dr. Svoboda went on to design several other follow-on computers, but after Czechoslovakia fell more fully under Soviet domination, began to feel constrained. Soviet officials limited his work and his access to the military computers he helped design, and eventually locked him out of his own office and told him that he would have to report to a political officer. He fled back to USA in 1964.

Author of one of the very first books on computer science and many of the basic axioms developed in its theory were worked on by him along with many other scientists.

Articles

• "Oral History Interview with Antonin Svoboda" [1]
• "In memoriam" [2]
• Vysoký, Petr: "Počítače z Loretánského náměstí" [3] (Czech)
• Časopis Automa: "100 let od narození Antonína Svobody" [4] (Czech)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonín_Svoboda